Tyger Tyger
by Spirit Bagle of Death
Summary: When Erik seduces Raven their last night in the mansion, Charles is forced to confront his feelings, and secrets are not the luxury of a telepath or his subjects.  Fairly graphic Erik/Raven, Erik/Charles. First-Class Spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: My take on what happened that last night at Charles's mansion. Reviews welcome!  
>Fairly graphic ErikRaven, Erik/Charles. First-Class Spoilers.**

Tyger Tyger

Charles was alone. Normally he craved solitude when he was tired or anxious, for he hated to appear as anything other than what he was, which was brilliant and charming. But tonight was…different. Erik's bleak fatalism had left him feeling not only disturbed, but, restless. In fact, if he was honest with himself (and he really had no other option; a telepath's first playground is his own mind), Erik _always _made him restless…and yet he craved his company even when he was at his worst. There was something (Charles smiled at his mental pun) _magnetic_ about him, and he was drawn to his volatile nature, his narrow philosophizing, his strength…for reasons he could not fully articulate.

That was it, then. He couldn't explain it. And Charles could explain everything. That was what bothered him…he did not understand why he liked this man, this feral slave to hatred who challenged his authority at every turn, why at the end of an argument, alone in the dark, all he could think about was the fire in those pain-lined eyes, and how good the game had been…

_Have you ever looked at a tiger, and thought it should be covered up?_

Charles's whole body shuddered as an all-too-familiar mind brushed his own, and he sat up ram-rod straight in his armchair. He swore under his breath and was then completely still, as tense as an intruder, although the intent had not been there. This was a secret not even his little Raven knew, that sometimes the gift asserted itself without his assent, and sometimes, like now, the world's thoughts and feelings were too loud to block even if he wanted to.

_People have been trying to tame you all your life, Raven. It's time to set you free._

Oh God…  
>The telepath closed his eyes, and was simply there. Erik's desire was a siren song, drawing him farther into his mind, and Raven's thoughts fluttered wildly, grounding him in the moment as if he stood two feet away. Her heart beat fast, a humming-bird beat, not tiger-like, no…Erik was the tiger, and he had pounced. It was intoxicating…he couldn't look away…<br>No. That was a lie, and even now, eyes shut tight, back arched, drunk on their passion and that damned whiskey, Charles could not lie to himself.

He _wouldn't _look away.

_... ... ... Erik POV ... ... ..._

She burns bright in this forest of doubt, this seemingly endless night. Shyness did not become her, and she is shedding it now in stages, like that banal human form. Her tongue explores my mouth with a hunger that matches the sheen in her predator's eyes…my dear, you cannot scare me, so be bold. If she had come to me blue and fearless, I would shove her down now, grab her wrists, bite her neck, and enter her without ceremony, because that is what she wants. But I let her touch me. I let her discover her own desire.

Her slender legs wrap around my waist, and she responds to the need she feels there instinctively. Her hips begin grinding in an irresistible rhythm, and she lets out a small moan as the pleasure hits her, then buries her head in my chest, as if this would offend me. I lean forward and suck on her earlobe. Her hands disappear beneath my shirt, and trace the contours there.  
>"Take it off."<br>It is more a growl than a request. God knows patience was never my virtue. She does, quickly and seamlessly, and I make short work of the rest of my clothing before pushing her gently onto her back.  
>"Erik, Erik…God…"<br>Her lips caress my name. All I want, all I want is to be inside her… "What is it?" And then, because my tiger has devoured selfishness, "Do you want me to stop?"  
>A brief moment of surprise…and then her pupils become slits. Her nails dig into my back and drag downward. Her cerulean skin is heat. "No."<p>

She is a goddess among insects, and I worship her the only way I know how. I am moving too quickly, being too rough, but she rises to the occasion…we are both crying out now, and I hope that the words she needs, the words I should say to this beautiful creature but can't, are in there somewhere. Eventually, we find a rhythm to master our mutual chaos, and I watch the orgasm radiate through her, choke her into silence, melt her into me. I am close, how can one not succumb to that spell…  
>And then I feel him. He is…<em>there, <em>here, I mean, right here, unobtrusive and yet unmistakable. I realize with a jolt that he has been here the whole time, and now he feels me feel him, and Raven feels that something is wrong, but stays blessedly silent…outrage is my kneejerk reaction, and it is strong.  
><em>What are you doing!<br>_I reach out with my mind, and hope that it hurts him. Instead it brings him more clearly into focus…and my chest clenches like it always does. Goddamnit!  
><em>I am sorry, I just…you were…<br>_He is completely discomposed, flustered…his defenses are down, and as he struggles to pull out, pull away, I read his naked consciousness like a book. The moment is ruined surely, and any second now I'm going to have to tell Raven something…  
>Except that I am still hard. I am still moving…and he is still watching, and the moment states its own truth through my thoughts.<br>_This is what you want.  
>I don't know what I want.<br>You are lying, Charles.  
>…Yes.<br>_  
>I come, and I come hard. Raven holds me close to her, and I collapse into her embrace knowing that it was that one silent word that took me there just as surely as her fire…knowing that he felt it, and that two rooms away, alone in the dark, his lips caressed my name, although I could not hear it with my ears.<p>

I thought I was alone. And now…now my own kind consumes me.

**End **


	2. Chapter 2

Charles's vomit was a sickly, syrup-yellow color. He purged it in spasms, careful to keep as quiet as possible despite the fact that he occupied the guest bathroom of the deserted east wing. When the lack of matter in his stomach was a biological certainty, he flushed and washed his mouth out, then caught his own reflected eye in the mirror.  
>It was not charitable. He had been up all night, and the combination of the naked bulb's glow and dawn's first hint out the window etched the worry lines in his forehead with perfect clarity. He was deathly pale and sweating, and the brilliant blue, expressive orbs in question were puffy and red, dogged with the effort of too much crying.<br>He didn't know what to do. He still couldn't believe he'd just…intruded, like that, in the first place. It had been wrong, on every level, and yet even as he thought about it, hours removed and in a state of near hysterical remorse, the images played back like a film…a film that excited him. He felt Erik's hands on him as they had been on Raven…dear God, Raven, as good as a sister…he felt his rough words against his ear, his neck, his…something else. But most of all, he felt Erik's joy, yes that's what it had been, however fleeting. He felt his beautiful friend's happiness, his smugness for being "right" about her, his passion for her body and her strength, all woven together in the echoes of their intimate moment, burned across his frontal lobe.  
>And it had been for her. All for her…he had been an unwanted spectator, and one who had been discovered…oh God, what was he going to say to him?<p>

The young telepath ran his fingers through his hair automatically and left the bathroom, tiptoeing through his own house as if it too were another's. He entered the first room he saw, a parlor of sorts, and stripped down to his boxers. He balled his clothing up tightly in one hand and shoved them into an empty flower-pot before collapsing onto a nearby sofa, succumbing to his irrational urge to hide, to cover up…everything. Throughout this series of bizarre actions, Erik's quiet accusation and his own response sounded out again and again in his mind…  
><em>This is what you want.<br>I don't' know what I want.  
>You are lying, Charles.<br>…Yes._

Yes. The question that had bothered him at the beginning of the evening was no longer a question, for the truth had crashed around him with a merciless certainty when their thoughts met in the bedroom; he loved this angry metal manipulator, this victim who refused at every turn to be a victim. He loved him unambiguously...carnally, and it was a strong love. It made him tongue-tied and restless, unsure of himself in comparison to Erik's ever-sureness. It made him the best damned mutant he had ever been...  
>No. <em>No. <em>

This was NOT him. He was Charles Xavier, and he was the master of his own heart, his own mental domain. There were a dozen people sound asleep in this very house tonight, confident in the training that _he _had proscribed, looking to him for leadership. He could not let them down because of…this. Because of a...slip-up. An anomaly. That is all it had been, and like all anomalies…it would have to be ignored or its cause would have to be isolated, analyzed, and eradicated.  
>The former was impossible. But the latter….<br>The memory is controlled the same way as everything else in the brain; a cluster of cells, fueled by electricity that flows a certain way based on perception, outside stimuli. Manually alter the flow…and the perception, the memory, is lost. He would be him again…and Erik would just have to endure his confusion. It would be a fleeting awkwardness…and then his friend would bottle it up as he did everything, if indeed he gave it a second thought. Raven, after all.  
>Very slowly, Charles sat up on the sofa. He forced his breathing until it was even and steady, and then his right hand came up to rest against his temple. The telepath shut his eyes then, and dove deep into his own mind, determined not to emerge until it all felt like a vague, ineffable nightmare. He ransacked its corners recklessly, using too potent a portion of his power…immediately his head began to pound. No matter. Pain was a necessary unpleasantness…<p>

And then his mind really fought back, and all was a crackling darkness, and lighting split his head, and the intent dissolved, and Charles's screams were long and keening as he writhed in agony on the hard wood floor.


	3. Chapter 3

The noise was distant and tinny, but Erik followed it on a hunch. He had tried to put the incident out of his mind and get some sleep, but Raven's soft warmth was an alien presence next to him in the bed after so long alone, and he wasn't…comfortable. Eventually, he gave into insomnia and went for a run on the grounds, and it was on the jog back that the sound manifested.

Only when he approached the eastern wall of the mansion did he realize someone was screaming…no, _shrieking, _and the tempest of energy surrounding the highest facing window left no doubt as to who it was. There were no coherent thoughts to read, just pure, unadulterated pain. Charles…

Erik sprinted. He reached the base of the mansion in a minute flat, but the ledge of the window was much too high, and he had no idea how to get to the source of the noise through the house's labyrinthine halls. The metal manipulator let out a yell of pure frustration and looked frantically around for…something, anything, finally spotting an old-style lamp post across the wide gravel driveway. Right across from the wall…  
>He was there in four strides, and scaled the metal pole to the very top. Yes, that was the easy part...a moment's hesitation, a moment only to judge the considerable span between the lamp's peak and the source of the horrible noise, and then Erik's instincts took over, and he channeled his fear into the magnetic field. The polarizing force shot out of him from every direction, and hurled him far too fast across the distance; he barely had time to cover his face before his entire upper half made contact with latticed glass, and crashed through the window. He rolled twice across the floor, glad he had not gotten stuck half out, half in, and all dead, and then counted to three on his back, mentally assessing the severity of his wounds. Nothing. Nothing that was going to stop him, anyway. A brief grunt of pain, and then Erik was on his knees, staring down at his suffering friend.<p>

A lump formed in his throat involuntarily as he watched Charles choke on his own breath and shudder. This mutant who had saved him from the deep darkness of the water and the submarine…who had asserted himself so arrogantly into his loneliness and miraculously become a…friend, was lost in a darkness of his own, and Erik had no idea how to help him. Desperately, he dragged the telepath's torso into his lap and tried to read the energy around him as he did whenever Charles spoke to him silently…he was clumsy, this was useless, he didn't even know how it worked, it just…was, and only because of the paths Charles opened.

And yet, if he had to bet, had to articulate what he was feeling now…he would say that Charles was fighting Charles. That was really the only way to describe the feedback, the rapid loops of…something, crackling in the air of the darkened parlor.

_How do I bring him back from this…how do I break the loop?_

Even as Erik asked himself the question, the blank…the _distracted, _nothingness in Charles's eyes provided the answer: the same way one breaks everything else.

Erik said a mental prayer, his first in years. And then he covered Charles's nose and mouth with a firm hand. He wrapped his legs around him to stop him from struggling, and used two fingers to gauge the telepath's heartbeat. Bile roiled in his stomach as his friend's struggle for air went from urgent to primal. He wanted to stop, wanted to let him, but air would only fuel the pain, perpetuate the loop. He had to go all the way…

The tempest became a whisper, and the writhing gave way. Charles's heart beat a beleaguered dirge, and his brilliant eyes rolled back in his head, leaving only the whites to match his pasty ghost flesh.

Erik waited until they closed, and the whisper went dead along with everything. He was crying now, the second time in a day, but he did not even notice. He had to, _had to _focus everything on what came next.

Deftly, the metal manipulator straddled Charles's body, and tilted his head backward. He held the bridge of his nose and placed his mouth on the telepath's parted lips. He breathed, and he breathed, and he breathed, pumping the center of his chest alternatively as he had seen the doctor do to the experimentals in the camp…Breathe and pump, breathe and pump, and whatever you do, don't stop… 

….

….  
><em>Erik<em>_…._

Erik's heart clenched at the soft ripple he felt against his mind…_no…keep breathing…what if you're imagining it? Keep pumping…_

_Erik._

Oh thank God. Thank. God. 


	4. Chapter 4

The flesh was warm. Charles leaned into it instinctively, for his body was a detonated bomb, and every breath was shrapnel…all he wanted was to curl up against this soft, brilliantly alive thing…and forget about everything…about…

Warm. Sticky…blood. Blood and…glass?

Window…mind window…darkness...darkness, pain…tears and the flowerpot?…

No no no.…where was he? Whose voice…whose flesh…God no…

"Erik…"

He didn't want to speak…didn't want to see…

"Erik."

"Charles…Du Hurensohn! What happened to you! You're okay now…yes? You are okay?"

Charles opened his eyes. Acrid stars gradually gave way to a parlor washed in semi-dawn…and Erik's distressed expression. The metal manipulator was on his knees, cradling Charles's torso and paying no heed to the multiple lacerations marring his chest and arms...

Flesh. Blood. Glass…Man. Charles's thoughts formed wildly, damaged threads struggling to weave themselves again...his friend's gaze was searching, and already filled with that familiar spark of anger…don't be angry with me please…I would do anything for you.

Horror hit the telepath as the last thread hemmed. "Erik…y-you should have left me. Please…go…go away…I can't."

Despite the radiating pain,…and the warmth, Charles scrambled to his feet and strode to the other end of the room. The effort consumed him, and when he hit the wall he allowed his body to slide. He heard Erik's growl behind him, heard the sure feet following his short path, and hunched until he was doubled over. A sob caught in his throat as he felt the metal manipulator's hand on his shoulder. The small thinking part of him noted that this was the first time he'd cried in the presence of another. Not even as a boy had he been so...candid.

Erik shook him roughly, and he moaned.

"Left you? What the hell do you mean leave you, where the hell WERE you? I had to…to…you were dead! You almost…what did you do?"

Charles's fingers paused for a split second on top of the metal manipulator's before brushing his hand away. His response was a strangled whisper. "It doesn't matter."

Erik spun Charles around (easily, as if he were a fighting dummy), so that the telepath was forced to face him once more. "The hell it doesn't matter. Your brain was frying itself."

"Leave it alone, Erik. I'm begging you."

"You're one to talk about leaving it alone!"

"I TRIED TO FORGET, ALRIGHT?" Charles's adrenaline spiked with the fight-or-flight response. He used the false strength to push Erik back, and stand. "…I tried to forget."

A long pause. Erik did not attempt to touch him again. Then, "…Forget what."

A bitter laugh. "You know what. And considering the subject of my,…intrusion, I should think your object would be to forget as well."

Erik's heavy brow creased in a frown. Charles let his silent tears fall, for truly it could get no worse than this. Instead, he ran a hand wearily through his hair, and wandered to the couch in the center of the room. The metal manipulator's eyes followed him intently…and the telepath suddenly wished he had on significantly more than boxers.

"If you want to know the truth, Charles," Erik's voice was low and unusually annunciating. "I am more surprised by your cowardice than I am by your kink."

Indignation was a strong antidote to shame. "What did you just say to me?"

"You get caught playing the voyeur, and you just, run away? No, worse than that! It would be one thing if you had simply scurried up here for the night. But you tried to run into your very mind. What were you going to do tomorrow, when I came and demanded an explanation? Play truthfully dumb? Is that what you do when your friends get too close- "Erik advanced, and was suddenly looming over the couch. "Or vice versa?"

Charles was trapped…trapped by the demanding eyes, the heaving, well-muscled chest, the barbed waves of energy, molten-electric and so assuredly _Erik's,…_it all boxed him in, ripped right through him, so that there was a hole where his heart used to be, and his heart was in his throat, and all he could think, even now, was 'magnificent'.

"I am not a coward."

"Then prove it."

The kiss was hard. Hard and clumsy and full of need, not at all like his artful forays with the co-eds. Erik responded immediately, pulling the young telepath up off the sofa and against his body tightly. The shards of glass pierced Charles's skin, but he did not care. All that mattered was this…this madness, oh what was this, and why had he never felt it before, and how in God's name had he gone so long without…Erik sucked on his roving tongue, and grinned against his friend's lips. This time, Charles's moan was not one of pain, and it took a superhuman, (nay, a _mutant_ effort) to pull away…but he did.

Two friends stood panting in the center of the parlor. The sun had just crested the horizon and filled the room with golden light. A bird interrupted the silence with a chattering chirp.

"But…Raven," Charles said eventually.

Erik frowned again, and then shrugged warily. "Yes, Raven." was his only reply.

Charles reached up and cupped Erik's cheek in a gesture that was too tender for the set jaw, the stubble, and the stress wrinkles his tapered fingers traced. His gaze fell to his friend's collarbone. "I…I am sorry. About what happened."

Erik planted another fleeting kiss on the parted lips, then stepped out of Charles's reach. He strode across the room and held the door open. "Forget it. We have-"

"Work to do."

"Heh. Yes."

END


End file.
